Boehringer Ingelheim announced today that the Arthritis Foundation recognized Respimat with its Ease of Use Commendation. As defined by the Arthritis Foundation, the Ease of Use Commendation, is awarded to “products proven to make life easier for people with arthritis and other physical limitations.”

“The Arthritis Foundation awards its Ease of Use Commendation when a product’s design or packaging has been proven to make taking medication easy and comfortable for people living with arthritis,” said Cindy McDaniel, Senior Vice President, Consumer Health, Arthritis Foundation. “To earn this Commendation, the Respimat inhaler went through a series of evaluations from experts and people living with arthritis.”

The Respimat inhaler was designed to deliver the medication through a slow moving mist, which gets medicine deep into patients’ lungs. The slow-moving mist of the Respimat inhaler provides patients with enough time to breathe in the medication.

In addition, the Respimat inhaler operates independent of inspiratory effort, helping patients effectively breathe the medicine into their lungs without having to sharply inhale the medicine. As with all inhaled drugs, the actual amount of drug delivered to the lung may depend on patient factors, such as coordination between actuation of the inhaler and inspiration through the delivery system. The duration of inhalation should be at least as long as the spray duration (1.5 seconds).

To earn the Ease of Use Commendation, the Respimat inhaler was independently tested by experts at the Intuitive Design Applied Research Institute lab in Atlanta and evaluated by people with arthritis.

“We are proud of our Respimat inhaler as being the first and only inhaler recognized by the Arthritis Foundation as easy to use for everyone,” said Jean-Michel Boers, president, Human Pharma, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. “For nearly a century, we have been committed to advancing care for serious respiratory diseases, and the Respimat inhaler is an important achievement as part of this long-standing commitment.”

Boehringer Ingelheim’s Respimat family of products includes four FDA-approved medicines for COPD as well as one for asthma.